


Hiraeth

by itachiphobia



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Fantasy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 05:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12381831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itachiphobia/pseuds/itachiphobia
Summary: In which Sakura is faced with a terrible threat, unless she makes a deal with a certain demon...





	Hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> Idk kinda happy with this one

Sakura held onto Naruto, her knees hurting because of the weight of his body which grew colder under her by the minute. She screamed his name again and again, wailing and crying for help. The large empty hall of the temple started tearing away every form of hope she had. She placed her palm on his chest and felt his very faint heartbeat. His weak heart was about to give in and there was nothing she was able to do despite being the best healer in her land.  

“Please! Show yourself!” she cried out again and then choked up on her own sobs, leaning down on her beloved. His entire body was still except for his bright blue eyes which were gradually losing their vision, helplessly staring at the woman crying over him. “He’s… he’s dying! P… please! You’re my last hope!”  

She stared at the large murals on the tall, broken walls, the gems adorned throughout the wall taking the form of a monster with red, fiery eyes and an enormous body radiating an aura of the very thing this enormous being had been known for harbouring centuries ago: hatred.  

_“It’s been quite some time since someone came to visit me.”_

Sakura froze in fear. She could’ve sworn she had imagined it, but then the loud words were followed by a low, gravelly grunt that echoed throughout the old temple. The voice was far from human, sending chills down Sakura’s spine. Her hold on Naruto tightened and she pulled him closer to her. There was a pause and then she heard a heavy chuckle.  

She gulped. “Is…is it you?”  

The red eyes of the monstrous fox in the painting started to glow. The engravings on the centre of the painting on the wall representing the seal that had entrapped the monster had started to reveal themselves. Beads of perspiration formed on Sakura’s forehead. It worked.

_“What do you think?”_  the voice said again.  

The words were enough to stir fear within her. She looked up with her teary eyes and tried her best to suppress it. She had come all this way, broken every the law of the highest precedence, just to be here. She couldn’t let it all go in vain.

“Please, you have to help him!” She cried out desperately, not thinking twice. Her heart thumped loudly against her chest. “He’s dying and I don’t know what…what to do…please! I beg of you.”  

The fox’s voice remained silent for some time. She thought she had lost whatever connection she had made to the Demon. She wanted to speak out again, but the spirit of the temple cut her off.  

_“I am not sure whether you’re a fool or whether the situation is indeed that dire that it requires me, of all things. Who might you be?”_

“We are soldiers from the Fire Kingdom,” the medic explained in a haste. “The lands are under war… and the enemy…they destroyed everything. One of them placed the Death Curse on him, and I just stood there…helpless. This curse is the only one in the lands that cannot be undone—”  

_“So, the lands are under war again?”_  the fox mused.  _“How unforeseeable.”_   

“Please! You have to help him!” Sakura begged. “There’s nothing in this world’s knowledge that could stop this curse from completing itself…”  

_“Except me,”_  the fox finished for her.  _“It is because I created it, I am the only one who can stop it. Isn’t that right, oh beautiful one?”_   

“Pl… please…”

The Demon laughed again, only this time it was more of a threatening growl.  _“You awaken me, the demon who has been sealed up in here for decades, so that you can save this mere man?”_

She only cried, sobbing over the man’s bare chest. It seemed like he was dead, but the Demon could still sense traces of life in his body. It was deemed as the only forbidden curse all those years ago. It lasted for an entire day, painfully taking away every ounce of life in the human body. This unconscious man before the monster was in his last few moments, there was no doubt. He must have passed out from the pain, the fox mused. To think humans still used the curse the Demon had created…  

The fox huffed. _“What makes you think I would help?”_  The entire painting on the wall had now started to acquire a faint glow.  

“I… I don’t know…” she replied, wiping away her tears and trying her best to sound sincere as she looked back at the monster on the wall. Her eyes flickered slightly as she saw the state of the painting, which had started to move.  

From behind the fox’s body, emerged its large tails; all nine of them. A devious grin made its way to the Demon’s mouth, revealing its sharp fangs. It was being freed from the bounds on the wall, she could tell. She knew it was because of her, but she didn’t care. She had one goal, and one goal only. She sat up straight up, undeterred.  

_“You do know what happened almost a hundred years ago? When they had to seal me up in my own temple?”_

“Yes.” Her breaths were shallow, but she had now stopped crying. She knew what was at stake.

_“My presence was a threat to your kind. I was deemed the living embodiment of evil itself. I could’ve crushed humanity, destroyed everything. The five greatest sages of this land had to do everything in their power to trap me in here. Make sure that my claws would never reach your world again. And yet, here you are.”_

She remained silent, maintaining a firm stare with the burning eyes on the wall.

_“You know everything, yet you decide to threaten everything that had been at stake, to save one man?”_

“He means everything to me,” was all she said.

The Demon chuckled again causing the ground beneath her to tremble. She could sense that all the barriers were being set loose. The Demon could manifest its physical form in front of her any time. She had to convince it somehow.

_“I must say, I’m quite impressed. Despite all the stories you may have heard, you’re here, prepared to quite possibly give up on this world. Just so you could save him. Just by being here, you have put your world at stake.”_

“This world has tried to take everything away from me,  _my_  everything. I don’t care for it anymore.” She had to convince him by lying. She couldn’t possibly threaten everyone, could she? But somehow, she knew there was some truth to her words. She knew what she actually felt.

_“Strong words. Very strong feelings to hold on to. Are you really sure about them?”_

She gulped, reminded of how less time Naruto had. “Yes.”

Its fangs had started to grow, its body taking a more perfected form in the painting itself. _“Well, I do possess the ability to give you what you want. I can bring him back to life. I do have a way.”_

“You do?” Her expectations grew, her impatience knowing no bounds.

_“You have my word,”_  the Demon said.  _“But the question is, at what cost?”_

She felt her heart drop. “Wh… what do you mean?”  _At what cost?_  “I… I broke the seal for you… I can set you free…”

_“Yes, I know,”_  the voice drawled.  _"But my true form has lost all its former strength, being trapped here for so long. I can’t just leave this place. My physical form cannot manifest itself until I gain my strength back. It cannot sustain itself for now.”_  The smile on its face grew.  _“I am still not free from this place, despite everything you have done.”_

She had begun to see where this was going. Her fear intensified, her body frozen. “What… what do you need?”

_“A vessel.”_

It was as though she couldn’t breathe anymore. Her body felt weak, her hands growing colder than the man laying on the ground. She started to tremble, her terror intensifying. She looked down at Naruto, who had now become entirely still. Perhaps his heart was beating, perhaps not. She couldn’t tell. Her desperation had reached its peak. There was no other way, and time had evidently run out.  

It was now or never.

_“Judging by the horrified look on your face, I think you know what I mean.”_  There was no response from her.  _“I get a vessel to contain myself in, and you get your beloved back.”_

“No… this can’t be,” she stuttered in disbelief.

_“Don’t worry. He will still be himself. It won’t hurt him in the slightest. He will still be there, just with a little bit of me in there. It would be as though nothing happened. He wouldn’t even remember it.”_

She remained silent for a long moment.

_“I think we both know you’re running out of time. What’s it going to be? Are you going to let me reside in him? Are you willing to taint his soul with my presence?”_ The Demon huffed again.  _“Are you willing to save his life?”_

“There has to be another way…”

_“This is the only just one, I’m afraid.”_

It would save him. But that would also mean giving his body to the beast. It would mean bringing forth to the world the very thing that wants it destroyed —  _in the form of the one she loves_. Naruto would never be himself anymore. He would never be the one she has always returned to, the one she can call her home. He wouldn’t be the same.

“What if I say no?”

_“Then he never comes back. And I will one day have gained my true form either way, so you’d still have me to worry about. Do you really want to live in a world without him? It would be a shame. Doing all of this for absolutely nothing.”_

Her eyes couldn’t hold back her tears anymore. She closed her eyes and faced upwards, thinking of Naruto. Thinking whether it was all worth it. She formed an image of him in her mind.  

She would feel his heart beat again. She would watch him as his face would gain colour again, she would watch him as the light returned to his eyes. She would have cried at some point, happy that he was back. But she would know what lied deep within him.

He would be here, he would be with her, he would be  _alive_. He would sound the same as he would call out her name, perhaps worried as to why she had been crying. He would be oblivious, like he always used to be. He would be back.

But he would never be complete.

_“So, what’s the verdict?”_

With tears still streaming down her cheek, she carefully lay Naruto down on the floor. Her knees hurt as she stood up, but the pain she was going through emotionally was much worse. Clenching her fists, she stood up straight.  

A world with the Nine-tailed Demon Fox would be horrible, but a world without him by her side would be much worse.

She cast the Demon a cold stare with blood-shot eyes, more determined than ever. 

“Just bring him back to me.”

The painting of the fox had already started fading, as though it knew what was to come. The seal had disappeared from the wall and made its way to the dead man’s stomach, gradually bringing colour to his cold, unmoving self.

_“As you wish.”_


End file.
